The standard-bearers of Anglo-American imperialism in the current epoch,
President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron, met in London
on May 25 to discuss the world's two ongoing wars of aggression, those
in Afghanistan and Libya, both under the command of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization dominated by Washington and London.

As well as joining a barbecue for American and British troops in the
prime minister's haunts, in the gardens of Number 10 Downing Street, the
two potentates called for continuing to bomb Libya back to the
Paleolithic Age.

Displaying what passes for sophisticated humor in the contemporary
deadened age, Cameron told the press, "It was...probably the first time
in history, as we stood behind that barbecue, that I can say a British
prime minister has given an American president a bit of a grilling."

Correspondents chuckled as Libyan, Afghan and Pakistani civilians writhe
in their death throes from the bombs and Hellfire missiles delivered by
Cameron's and Obama's warplanes.

Waxing as reflective as he is capable of doing, the British prime
minister added: "Barack and I came of age in the 1980s and '90s. We saw
the end of the Cold War and the victory over communism. We saw the
invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein and the world coming together to
liberate that country. Throughout it all, we saw presidents and prime
ministers standing together for freedom."

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder in triumphalism and unbridled militarism,
more like.

British, French, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Qatari and United
Arab Emirate warplanes have flown over 8,000 sorties and more than 3,000
combat missions against Libya since NATO took control of the war on
March 31, before which the U.S. and Britain fired at least 160 cruise
missiles into the nation. Hours before Cameron and Obama enjoyed their
barbecue, NATO warplanes launched a one-hour bombardment of the Libyan
capital of Tripoli, the most ferocious attack in more than two months,
killing 19 people and injuring over 130 others.

The third plenipotentiary of Anglo-American global power projection, the
European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security
Policy Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland - who succeeded
former NATO secretary general Javier Solana in the post - was in
Washington last week to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and
plan more onerous joint sanctions against Syria, with Clinton stating
"we discussed additional steps that we can take to increase pressure and
further isolate the Assad regime," exemplifying the diplomatic finesse
the world has come to expect from the foreign policy executrix of the
world's sole military superpower.

A week before, the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC),
whose six member states - Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates,
Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, to a one hereditary monarchies, emirates and
theocracies, but accounting for 45 per cent of the world's proven oil
reserves - are the West's main allies and proxies in the Arab world and
the Persian Gulf, issued a joint declaration demanding that Libyan
leader Muammar Gaddafi abdicate power in favor of the rebel Transitional
National Council financed and armed by NATO and GCC nations and
advocating the easing out of Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh in
favor of a more pliant and reliable client.

The EU and GCC, with not a scintilla of apparent irony given the above,
also demanded that Iran "play a constructive role and stop interfering
in the internal affairs of GCC member states and other countries in the
region." On March 14 the first of 1,500 troops from Saudi Arabia, the
United Arab Emirates and the other GCC states entered Bahrain, two days
after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates left the kingdom, to back up
the Al Khalifa dynasty against opponents of the religious
minority-dominated autocracy.

The following week Kuwait deployed naval forces off Bahrain "to protect
the territorial waters of the kingdom" as part of the GCC's Peninsula
Shield Force military intervention.

In announcing the penultimate round of sanctions against Syria in late
April, President Obama included Iran, claiming "Irans actions in
support of the Syrian regime place it in stark opposition to the will of
the Syrian people." The will of the Bahraini people is another matter.

Since April the GCC, of which Yemen is not a member, has been pressuring
the Yemeni government to accept its alleged mediation efforts to effect
a change of regime, an initiative backed by the U.S. and its NATO
allies. As German foreign ministry spokesman Andreas Peschke recently
informed the press, "We call on President Saleh not to seek to wait out
the situation, and to seriously consider and accept the mediation offer
made by the Gulf Cooperation Council." He added that "The European Union
might take new measures to up pressure on the regime 'should President
Saleh stubbornly hang on.'" [1]

During his meeting with Prime Minister Cameron on the same day,
President Obama chimed in by stating, "We call upon President Saleh to
move immediately on his commitment to transfer power."

On May 23 European Union foreign ministers levied more stringent
sanctions against Belarus, Iran, Libya and Syria, four nations - hardly
surprisingly - also targeted by the U.S. for regime change.

Neither the U.S. nor its NATO allies in the European Union have breathed
a word about introducing sanctions against the kings and emirs of the
GCC states.

Qatar and its GCC partners were the prime movers behind the action by
the Arab League, of which they constitute barely a quarter of the
members, to call for a United Nations resolution against Libya on March
12. A week later the U.S., Britain, France and their NATO allies began
the bombardment of the country.

Diminutive Qatar, an absolute monarchy with a population under 1.7
million, was the first country to recognize the rebel regime in Libya,
the first Persian Gulf state to join a NATO combat mission by supplying
French-made Mirage fighter jets and U.S.-origin C-17 Globemasters for
the war effort, and set up a satellite television channel - Ahrar TV -
as the mouthpiece for the Transitional National Council, as well as
providing it with French-made MILAN missile launchers. Qatar is also
managing oil exports from rebel-controlled Libya.

A news source in Azerbaijan published the following account on March 28,
nine days after the war against Libya was launched:

"NATO's operation, worth about $300-500 million a day, on sweeping the
sky over Libya opens a new historical era: the beginning of colonial
conquests by the Persian Gulf states. At the same time NATO acts as a
'soldier of fortune' - a professional mercenary, ensuring colonial
conquest itself.

"The defeat of Colonel Qaddafi's ground forces by NATO aviation has
opened possibilities for the opposition for restoration of oil exports
from Libya. As a result, according to a representative for the economy
and oil of the 'transitional government' of the opposition, Ali Tarkhuni,
the opposition has already reached an agreement on oil exports under the
supervision of Qatar." [2]

On April 14 President Obama hosted the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin
Khalifa Al-Thani, at the White House and praised his guest for "the
leadership" he demonstrated in promoting "democracy in the Middle East,"
particularly in Libya, adding:

"Qatar has not only supported [the campaign against Libya]
diplomatically but has also supported it militarily and we are very
appreciative of the outstanding work that the Qataris have done side by
side with other international coalition members." The emir responded by
thanking Obama for "the position the U.S. has taken in support of the
democratization process that has taken place in Tunisia and in Egypt and
what is attempting to take place in Libya."

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is one of 49 official Troop
Contributing Nations supplying forces for NATO's International Security
Assistance Force in Afghanistan (Bahrain, though not in that category,
also has military personnel assigned to NATO in the war zone), announced
last week that it will be the first Arab nation to send an ambassador to
NATO headquarters in Brussels. The UAE is also the only other Arab state
providing warplanes for the now 68-day attack against Libya.

Along with its fellow GCC member states Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, the
UAE is a member of the NATO Istanbul Cooperation Initiative military
partnership established in 2004. NATO has conducted conferences, sent
leading military commanders and deployed warships to all six GCC
nations, including Saudi Arabia and Oman, not yet full members of the
Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. The Alliance's ever-expanding role in
the Persian Gulf is designed to contain and when the opportunity arises
confront Iran.

Two years ago French President Nicolas Sarkozy travelled to the UAE to
open his nation's first military base in the Middle East, in the Abu
Dhabi emirate, where he stated to his host: "Be assured that France is
on your side in the event your security is at risk."

In the middle of April, starting on the day Obama met with Qatar's Hamad
bin Khalifa al-Thani, NATO foreign ministers met in Berlin to plan the
intensification of the war against Libya, with Hillary Clinton stating
that the bloc's members were "sharing the same goal, which is to see the
end of the Gaddafi regime in Libya." The NATO foreign ministers signed a
declaration pledging continuation of the war which was also signed by
representatives of Jordan, Qatar, Morocco, Sweden, Ukraine and the
United Arab Emirates, all members of NATO partnership programs: The
Mediterranean Dialogue, Partnership for Peace and Istanbul Cooperation
Initiative.

Ten days ago Moroccan Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi Fihri announced that
his nation intends to join the Gulf Cooperation Council, and the GCC
reciprocated by confirming that it was considering the request and a
parallel one by Jordan. Neither country is near the Persian Gulf but
both are monarchies.

At the Congress of Vienna in 1815 after the final defeat of Napoleon
Bonaparte at Waterloo, the monarchies in Russia, Austria and Prussia
created what became known as the Holy Alliance to unite the European
continent under a coalition of kings, czars and emperors exploiting a
patina of religiosity to forever fend off the reappearance of
republicanism. Of forces they couldn't control.

The self-proclaimed champions of Euro-Atlantic values gathered under the
banner of NATO have now found their fitting complement: The kingdoms and
emirates of Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia
and the United Arab Emirates. A kinship indeed exists, as the majority
of nations bombing Libya on both sides are monarchies: Belgium, Britain,
Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Qatar and the United Arab
Emirates, as well as NATO partner Sweden which has assigned eight Gripen
warplanes for the war and Canada once removed.

Last September the Financial Times reported that Washington planned to
sell $123 billion worth of arms to GCC states - $67.8 billion to Saudi
Arabia, $35.6 billion to the United Arab Emirates, $12.3 billion to Oman
and $7.1 billion to Kuwait - in addition to incorporating the Gulf
states into the global U.S. missile shield system.

The White House later confirmed a $60 billion weapons deal with Saudi
Arabia, the largest foreign arms transaction in American history.

The U.S., Britain, France, Italy and their NATO allies have revealed
their plans for control of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf: A
comprehensive military alliance with the royal families of the Arab
world.